One of my favourite bands, Rancid, recently announced their forthcoming album will be titled Tomorrow Never Comes.
The title of the album and the song it shares its name with got me thinking about time.
In episode 156 of The Writing Coach podcast, I explore time — how we use it, how to reclaim it, and when the “right” time is to take on a project like writing a book.
Listen to the episode or read the transcript below:
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The Writing Coach Episode #156 Show Notes
Get Kevin’s FREE book: NOVEL ADVICE: MOTIVATION, INSPIRATION, AND CREATIVE WRITING TIPS FOR ASPIRING AUTHORS.
The Writing Coach Episode #155 Transcript
Hello, beloved listeners, and welcome back to The Writing Coach Podcast. Guess who it is? As always, your host is writing coach Kevin T. Johns.
It’s a launch week for me. You probably heard last episode that the doors are open to my group coaching program, First Draft. This is the first time I’ve welcomed a new cohort of writers into the group in six months. I’m so excited to get some fresh blood in there and to meet a whole group of amazing authors, get working with them, and introduce them to the amazing people we already have in our community.
First Draft is amazing; it’s a group coaching program, but it’s also a community and a collection of resources for authors.
When you join, you get weekly question-and-answer office hours calls so that you can ask questions specific to your project in your situation. We get on these calls as a group and help one another out.
We also have weekly office hours hot seat calls so that you can get the kind of one-on-one coaching and editorial advice that I provide to my one-on-one clients, but, obviously, it’s at a fraction of the cost because it’s part of a group program.
We also have a fantastic Slack community so writers can communicate with each other and ask questions and share resources totally separate from social media. That was so important to me . . . that this bee on a platform completely divorced from the distractions of social media.
First Draft also features access to a training library of over 20 writer’s craft courses.
In fact, I’ll let you know something . . . I actually added an additional one. And so even though in my marketing I say there are 20 courses, there are actually 21 courses, each of which comes with a sketch note. It’s a one-page document that combines illustration with notes and captures all of the critical content in that course.
When you join First Draft, you also get matched up with a new positivity partner each week. This is another writer in the group with whom you exchange up to 2000 words. You read each other work, and you provide each other with only positive feedback. It’s not a critique partner; it’s a partner to provide you with positivity and give you that good energy to keep going and working on your manuscript.
The goal of the program is simple: get a first draft of a book written in six months or less, and we’re going to help you do it in a fun and focused manner that allows you to avoid all that frustration that comes with writing a first draft.
All right, so that is the program that I have been pitching this week, and because of that, I’ve been thinking a lot about the response I sometimes get from writers or aspiring authors and aspiring writers about why they don’t join the program.
They say, “You know, that sounds amazing, Kevin. I know you could help me. I know I could do well in this program, but the time’s not right for me. It’s not the right time. I need to wait till next year,” or “I need to wait until a couple of things align in my life.”
It always makes me think about those friends we all have. If it wasn’t a friend, you had a sibling or someone in your life, and they’re a happy couple. Maybe they’re married, they’re clearly in it for the long haul together, and they’ve decided they will have a baby.
They will start a family, but they’re waiting, and you are like, “What are you waiting for?” And they respond, “We are waiting for the perfect time.” <Laugh> It’s this idea that at some point, your life, your career, your family, your health, your exercise goals, all of these things are going to align perfectly, and that’s when you have your baby.
Now I’m a parent; I’m a parent three times over. And I can tell you, having children turns your life completely upside down and changes it forever. There’s no point in waiting for “the perfect time” to have a kid because the second you’re pregnant, the second those kids are born, everything changes forever, and nothing is ever perfect again. You’ve got nothing but excitement and chaos in your life for the next 18 years, at least.
The idea of waiting for that perfect moment to have your baby is silly.
And I think that concept applies perfectly to writing your book.
Many people spend so many years of their life thinking about a story, planning a story, starting it, but never completing it. And with this program, the First Draft program, I’m saying, “I’m going to work with you to get that first draft of that book done while avoiding the frustration and time suck that so many people experience.” Some writers say, “Well, now’s not the right time. I’ve got to wait a couple of months. I’ve got to wait a couple of years. I have to wait until the time is right.”
But the thing is, when is the time right?
When will things ever calm down or perfectly align in your life?
It’s interesting because, for the first time in a very long time, life did calm down for all of us during the pandemic. There was a long period of time there when we didn’t have responsibilities outside of the house. A period of time where we were stuck at home and we had all the time in the world, or so it seemed, or so we were told.
And yet, I want you to ask yourself, how productive were you then in that moment when life stopped, and you could have written your book?
Did you write it?
And if you didn’t . . . why not?
I know the answer, at least from my perspective, because life didn’t calm down during the pandemic. I was stuck at home with three children, <laugh> and as I alluded to at the beginning of this talk, life with kids is crazy. And you know, we had online work, and we had a house to take care of, and we had to plan to buy groceries differently than we were used to because there were big lineups to get into the store.
And I don’t know about you, but my life didn’t feel any less busy during the pandemic.
Life is always coming at you, and life is always getting in the way of what you want to achieve.
A band I love, a band I’ve loved since I was a kid, is the punk rock band Rancid, and I saw online this week that they announced that they have a new album coming out, and the album’s called Tomorrow Never Comes. And they played a little clip of a song from the album, and it sounds like the album’s title is named after this song. You can hear the guys in Rancid singing, “Tomorrow, tomorrow never comes.” And obviously, I had time on my mind, and I was thinking about the idea that tomorrow never comes, and I thought: it’s because when tomorrow gets here, it’s today, and today is always busy. There’s always something going on.
So if you are waiting for tomorrow to arrive so that you can write your book or you can join the First Draft program, tomorrow it ain’t coming. There’s only today, and there’s only a busy life.
And so you need to think about what’s preventing you right now from finding that time to write, finding that time to get the support you might need to write a first draft of a first book. There’s a time management expert named Laura Vanderkam. She has a book called What the Most Successful People Do Before Breakfast, and she has said. . .
When people say, “I don’t have the time,” it really means, “It’s not a priority.”
The only way to find the time to do anything in your life is by making it a priority.
So what is stopping you right now today from treating your writing as a priority in your life?
I know so many people who give so much of their time and their energy and their heart and their soul to their jobs, to their families, to their communities, to all of the responsibilities that are thrust upon them. And they never take that time to pause for a moment and say, “Hey, I’m going make myself a priority. I’m going to take back time to pursue the things that matter to me.”
How do you find the time to write? There are techniques we can use and ways for you to find the time. It’s not that hard.
I’m giving away a bonus when you join First Draft. We’re going to have a live workshop called “How to Find the Time to Write.” I’ll walk you through exactly how to do it because finding time to write isn’t hard.
What’s hard, what’s really difficult, is to look at yourself in the mirror and say, “My writing is a priority in my life.” It’s difficult to say, “I deserve to preserve three or four or five, or whatever it is, hours a week for me and myself in my creativity, in my development as an artist, as someone with something to say, with a story I want to give to the world.”
Tomorrow Ain’t coming. <Laugh>
Things are never calming down. If you really want to write a book, now is the time to do it.
Choose to make it a priority in your life because there ain’t ever a perfect time to have a baby, and there ain’t ever a perfect time to write a book.
If you’d like support while you’re doing it, if you’d like to be part of a community of authors pursuing the same goals as you, if you’d like coaching, if you’d like training, if you’d like to expand your writers craft knowledge, join the First Draft group coaching program.
The doors are open right now, and we are closing them at the end of the month. You might be listening to this past the date. I hope you’re not, though, I hope you’re listening to it right now because on May 2nd, we’re kicking things off. You have just a few days to join First Draft, and I hope you do. I hope you choose to make writing a priority. I hope you choose to make educating yourself in the craft your chosen craft, your chosen art form a priority, and I hope you choose to be part of our community.
To join First Draft, head on over to www.kevintjohns.com/firstdraft. And if you get signed up now, I’ve got some bonuses . . . I mentioned one already, didn’t I? A live workshop where we’re going work together and look at your schedule and figure out how you can find the time for both the program and your writing.
I’m also providing as a bonus free access to my online course, Smash Fear and Write Like a Pro. This is a mindset-focused course to get you believing in yourself and overcoming all those fears and trepidations that hold back so many authors.
I’m also providing, as a bonus, a free copy of my book, The Novel Writer’s Blueprint: Five Steps to Creating and Completing Your First Book. When I was thinking about providing that as a bonus, I pulled the book down off the shelf, and I looked at it, and I realized I wrote it ten years ago.
I’ve been teaching the craft of writing for over a decade now. It’s incredible.
I’ve learned so much along the way, and it’s been such a pleasure to be able to provide support and resources and advice and information and to be a creative partner for so many authors who are now getting their books out into the world and writers who are just achieving things they always wanted to in their lives. It’s a really cool special thing.
The final bonus I’m offering is a free one-on-one coaching session. My schedule is pretty book solid these days. I’m not taking on a lot of one-on-one clients at this point. If you want me to look at your material closely, the best way to do it is to join the First Draft program, where we have those hot seats where I go through the material with a fine-toothed comb.
When you do join, you get a free one-on-one session with me. We’re going to sit down, and we’re going to go over where you’re at, where your story’s at, any obstacles you anticipate, and we’re really going to nail down a plan to ensure that you find success in the program and that you get the first draft of your book written in a fun and focused manner.
All right? That is it.
Can you tell I’m feeling a little heated? That I’m feeling a little passionate about this stuff?
I really want you to take action and listen . . . Would I love it if you joined First Draft?
Yes.
But what do I really want you to do?
I want you to write that book.
All right?
Make the decision to say, “That thing that’s been in my heart for so long . . . I’m getting it out. I’m getting it out of my heart. I’m getting it out of my head. I’m getting it onto the page and sharing my story with the world because stories matter, change lives, educate, entertain, and reframe the way we experience reality. They are powerful and profound tools.”
And so I urge you to stop waiting for “the perfect time.”
It’s never going to come.
Now is the perfect time.
Maybe I’ll close on an old Chinese proverb: When was the perfect time to plant a tree? Ten years ago. When is the second best time? Today.
Now.
You can’t go back in time. You can’t plant that seed any sooner than right now.
And so now is the time to plant the seed. Now is the time to write the book.
All right, that is it for this episode. Did I give you the url? www.Kevintjohns.com/firstdraft. That’s where you can get all signed up.
I’ll have the links, of course, in the show notes for this episode.
Thank you so much for tuning in. It’s always lovely to get to talk to you. I hope you also hit that subscribe button so that I can see you on the next episode of The Writing Coach.
